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Arizona Office
110 S Church Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85701
Fax: (520) 623-0447
The Arizona office works locally, regionally and nationally to preserve Southwest wildlife species and their homes and to build a vocal pro-wildlife public. This office is located where the southern Rocky Mountains, the northern Sierra Madre mountains and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts meet– and so hosts a spectacular diversity of landscapes, plants and animals.
The Arizona office works with the public, other national and local environmental groups, scientists and government agencies to study, support and advocate for wildlife. They work with diverse groups to preserve wild habitats, safeguard species and recover endangered species.
Key Programs:
Recovering the Mexican wolf: Defenders advocates for the recovery of wolves throughout the southwest, scientifically-based wolf management and innovative solutions to wolf-livestock conflicts.
Safeguarding wildlife and habitats along the border: Defenders collaborates with diverse groups, including human-rights advocates and the US military, to make sure that border security infrastructure and activities are minimally destructive to wildlife and wild places.
Protecting the Sonoran Desert and local species: Defenders works to limit development in fragile desert environments, and to protect endangered species like the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, the Sonoran pronghorn and the Pima pineapple cactus.
Recovering the American jaguar: Defenders works in Sonora, Mexico to conserve the world’s northernmost population of jaguars, and in Arizona and New Mexico to study and protect the corridors they use to cross into the United States.
Building a strong constituency for wildlife: Defenders works to build local support for critical national, state and local wildlife and conservation issues. By reaching out to Defenders members and supports in Arizona and reaching out to new individuals, groups and businesses, this office is working to develop educated, trained and active constituencies who support and are involved with Defenders mission and work. Through community activism, education, media outreach and working with elected officials, the Arizona office works to provide a strong and influential voice for Arizonians supporting wildlife protections.
Key Accomplishments:
- Hosted two multi-agency, academic symposia on environmental impacts of border activities, and published the ground-breaking report “On The Line: The Impacts of Immigration Policy on Wildlife and Habitat in the Arizona Borderlands” (2006).
- Served on a Congressional Task Force which investigated impacts of efforts to conserve the endangered Sonoran pronghorn on military readiness training in Arizona’s western deserts (2005).
- Participate in key jaguar conservation initiatives to protect jaguars in their northern range including an ongoing jaguar guardian/monitoring program, a landowner camera contest and establishment of the Northern Jaguar Reserve (2003 – Present).
- Coordinate and support wolf recovery planning efforts in Mexico including reintroduction site feasibility studies, training of Mexican biologists and administrative coordination to officially recognize priority wolf recovery areas (1998 – Present).
- Providing timely capacity-building support to the White Mountain Apache Tribe which enabled tribal leadership of wolf restoration efforts and opened 1.5 million acres of tribal land to support wolf recovery (1998 – Present).
- Taking a lead role in development of the nationally recognized Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (1998 – Present).
- Led successful multi-year regional and national campaigns to restore the critically endangered Mexican wolf to the wild (1993 – Present).
